Rose and Black

Comedian Lewis Black talks on "The Daily show" on the poor education system. he discusses the topic of charter schools being better schools widely more effective, but also being hard to get into and attend. Charter schools seeming to be more effective simply for the fact that they individualize to each student and set expectations for each. while Chalk demonstrates that public schools set low standards for the majority of students to be able to meet which inevitably brings the entire level of schooling down to accommodate its lower level learners. not nurturing the gifted kids talents.

Mike Rose's Resolutions in Education, states "To stop making the standardized test score the gold-standard of student achievement and teacher effectiveness." this stuck out at the point in the movie chalk where the history teacher wanted badly to become teacher of the year. now obviously this was a comedy, but it showed how teachers are meant to push for their students scores to be the best to show their performance vs. things like student understanding comprehension and memorability on the subject. school systems are poorly judging the teachers and students efforts on scores. in this scene the students commented on how hard they each worked, even though they didn't win.

What i think

I think high school is to teach kids basic education. how we accept this education is completely up to us. I think the basic idea of high school is to open up a variety of opportunities and potential interests for students to begin thinking about their future careers and goals. High school is the age that kids are becoming adults, and it is priming us to become informed adults. now of course it has many areas it could use work in. but for the most part the idea is good. Most teachers are crappy, classes are a joke, and grades unrepresented of a persons real intelligence. but unfortunately, there is no other way to do it. it is impossible to satisfy everyone's needs. i believe if you are as lucky as i have been, it is a fun experience that gets the gist of the job done, and the rest is for me to figure out. my one large complaint would be the purely educational focus of school. there is nothing even offered to help kids learn to communicate with one another. the smartest person in he world would be nowhere without communication. i think that a class on communication would be an extremely life changing additive to the school curriculum.

how does chalk illustrate

1. when the student is late to class and the gym teacher freaks out and says that the rule needs to be reinforced regardless the circumstance. This is an example of Gatto's opinion on how students are supposed to react to authority. "Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely"
2.When the gym teacher is trying to get her entire class to perform at the same standard when not all of them are at the same standard. this pairs with Gatto saying "This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible"
3.when the assistant principle starts mediating conflicts with kids getting in trouble by fighting, bad grades, ect. Gatto describes this as "determining each student's proper social role"
4.when the history teacher tries to be friends with his students vs. being a teacher to them. I believe this is an example of what freire thinks is a good thing although its proven to be very bad.
5. When the new history teacher is uninterested in deciphering how to teach his students and instead believes himself not right for the job. This illustrates Gatto's explanation of teachers being bored, even in the break room, where there was also a scene In the teachers lounge of exactly that.

Chalk real time notes

argue for a change or addition through the k-12 that happens in the movie. help to fix something you see in chalk.

The History teacher is starting his first year teaching his class and starts off obviously having problems creating a sense of authority or teaching mentality to his class. he struggles with getting their attention, making them behave, and handling conflicting situations. He incorrectly breaks up a fight between two girls in class and tells them just to sit back down. He later gets in a fight with one of his students over his cell phone going off in class. They both call each other curse words. He feels extremely guilty and goes to the kids house and talks to his mother and gets teaching advice from her. he is very insecure. He begins to bond with his students when they convince him to run in the spelling b for slang words kids use. they spend time teaching and training him to know how to spell all the words and understand what they mean. He wins the spelling b. The last scene of him and his students is them getting him to "Spit a rap" while one of the kids make a beat on their desk. He is conflicted about signing up to teach another year, and I believe does not end up continuing to teach although it was left semi open ended. he end with a quote saying "being  a teacher is a gift, maybe its something you can learn, but no one has taught me"

the second history teacher has an issue building an educational relationship with his students. he becomes friends with them instead of teaching them and disciplining them correctly. He runs for teacher of the year and try's really hard to win, but does not. he freaks out and flips a desk in his classroom on front of his students and beats himself up about it.

the gym teacher is female and everyone thinks she is lesbian. she struggles with getting her students involved in the athleticism and effort of gym. she makes up interesting games to get them all hyped and on board. she explains that confidence is something you need to make them have by believing in them. she also likes the first time history teacher.

the assistant principle is doing her job for the first time when she was previously a teacher. she learns that she has to spend countless hours at the school when she is supposed to be home and comes into conflict with the gym teacher trying to get her to fix everything. she also struggles with disciplining kids.

Freire&Gatto

I think Gatto and Freire have very similar opinions on education. They both think the entire system is terrible and completely wrong. Gatto speaks about the teachers being bored and blaming the students for their bad teaching and so on. Freire talks about how the students and teachers should be equals and learn from each other. they agree in the sense that they both think education is being delivered in the wrong ways but don't agree on the way they think it should be delivered. Freire believes that children should be allowed to come to conclusions on their own vs. being taught to memorize a set curriculum. he thinks that students curiosity and creativity are being stifled by the teacher student relationship. I personally did not agree with his method or logic. it reminded me more of a nature walk plan instead of an educational plan. Gatto talks about teachers boredom and lifelessness of their teaching, and goes on to talk about what school is trying to shape kids into through their authority and conformity. He go's on to talk about six main points of what schools are doing to their kids. "Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority" "This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible." "School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records" "Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further" " Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments" " a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor". this I find to be very true and interesting, although It does not coincide with the beliefs of freire.

Group 11/14

In what ways did reading this website enrich, complicate and or confuse your understanding about Freire’s banking concept.

This website was a way to connect us reading it, to what freire is trying to give off to the readers from his second book published Pedagogy of the Oppressed. In the book he goes into great detail of what the characteristics of teachers are. He writes about the banking process of educators and “the “banking” concept of education regards men as adaptable, manageable beings, the more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness that would result from their intervention in the world.” Here is talking about how students learn to adapt to what they are learning, the teachers know everything and the students know nothing. He states that the teacher talks and the students listen.  He also writes, “The capability of banking education to minimize or annul the students’ creative power and to stimulate their credulity serves the interests of the oppressors, who care neither to have the world revealed nor to see it transformed.”  The oppressors he speaks of he is talking also about the employers, the elected officials,  as well as anyone with socio-economic power over others. While the website states that, “as the illiterate person learns and is able to make such statements, his world becomes radically transformed and he is no longer willing to be a mere object responding to changes occurring around him. The educated are more likely to decide to take upon themselves the struggle to change the structures of society that until now have served to oppress them.”  He wants us to understand that we need to have an education where the students shouldn’t be afraid to speak out and to constructively criticize the teachers. They need to not let boredom overpower them in education being that the “educated man is the adapted man, because he is better “fit” for the world.” “The more completely the majority adapt to the purposes which the dominant minority prescribe for them (thereby depriving them of the right to their own purposes)”

My High School Experience

"we must wake up to what our schools really are: laboratories of experimentation on young minds, drill centers for the habits and attitudes that corporate society demands. Mandatory education serves children only incidentally; its real purpose is to turn them into servants"

The entire topic of education is some what hard for me to speak on, because I feel everyone has a semi valid point. I love this quote of Gatto because that is exactly what school is. On the other side of the fence though, school is amazing in so many ways. Regardless of if I am for it or against it, I can definitely speak on my k-12 experience.

in many ways it was similar to Gatto's description. My schooling was filled with forced authority and reward for conformity. For my first three years of school I was placed in the "assist" program for kids that needed assistance. and while I think intentions were decent, reality was failure. This program did nothing but teach kids that they need different help than others and separated them from "normal" learners. it only put them, and me, further behind. Until I finally broke free of that system by begging my parents to take me out saying "I'm not a stupid learner" and was placed into standard fourth grade. At this point I was at least a year behind and worked extremely hard to be middle level intelligence in my class. I never successfully learned my multiplication facts although they are just memorization. as behind as I was I continued to barely make it through each grade until I got to middle school and had an array of classes to pass. I did well, but noticed weird rules that were made to follow like "no standing in the lunch room". Why in the world not?! I cant stand? protesting only resulted in lunch detention. I was forced to take shop classes and computer classes. Sewing and babysitting classes. it made no sense to me why these things were required. but I didn't do a lot of questioning, because it was fun. I feel, aside from the boring schoolwork, that it was a completely social experience. and it was. I went to school each day and hung out with ,y friends. I made friends. I lost friends. I made new friends.

high school was the same thing. I was able to break off and take classes of my choice in a sense such as extra sciences and a language of my choice. but only because this is what the kids that wanted to succeed did. I passed AP classes with A's and B's and still feel myself no better or smarter than the average student. no better off either. school was pushing us all in the direction we are "meant" to go. its grueling actually. but like anything else its a learning experience. and as much as its about mass education at one time, I believe its social. maybe not even social enough.

I graduated. so I am happy. I was able to move on to college, obviously, and I know the importance of learning. I think school is a good thing although it has many bad traits. like anything else though.